My last two blog posts have been about my excitement and preparation for the art show this past weekend, but, instead of appearing at the Sunbear Gallery I was languishing at the luxurious St. Anne’s Hospital resort.

A bumpy detour

Continuing the road metaphor that I used in my last post I will say that the road suddenly became bumpy and detoured straight to the doors of the hospital. The past week was especially hectic as I completed my work and prepared displays for the show. During that time I wasn’t feeling up to par but pushed it to the back of my mind saying I didn’t have time to be sick. Everything had to be turned in to the gallery by Wednesday to give them time to prepare their displays. Throughout Thursday I continued to feel “ify” and began to think I wasn’t feeling well enough to stand for two days in the heat and talk with the people when all I wanted to do was be in bed. Friday I went to our local Urgent Care and asked the doc to patch me up for two days to give me time to get through the weekend. He examined me and then said, “I can patch you up but you will hate me later. You need to go to the ER right now.”

A popular term for the miniature White Castle hamburgers is “gut busters” or “gut bombs”—WELL—I felt like a couple of those bombs had gone off in my gut. Without going into graphic detail let’s just say the belly was bouncing. After a bad reaction to some meds things went from bad to worse. That is when I went into seclusion, had the phone disconnected, and saw few visitors.

Happy faces equal happy pills

Fortunately, I responded well to a heavy dosage of antibiotics and was able to come home on Sunday. But, the best medicine of all was a series of happy faces drawn by my niece’s four-year old son Aidan. Posted on the bathroom door was a dry erase chart where the nurses wrote their names for each shift and at the bottom was a series of emoticons to help the patient measure his pain. At the end of the series Aidan drew a sad face because Aunt Sheila had an “ouwee”, then he drew a happy face in the blank space meant for the patient to list a goal. At the very end of the chart he drew what can only be described as a blob which meant that Aidan didn’t have any “ouwees”. He then drew me a card full of various happy faces which looked to me like happy pills. All those happy faces must have worked because by the end of their visit I felt much better and even the nurses agreed my condition was much improved.

Take it from me, if you are ever feeling poorly the best medicine is the happy faces of a four-year old.